Oh Lord, all my longing is before you. My sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me and the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me.
– Psalm 38:9–10
These verses are so poignant, they’re such a powerful picture of a very low point in life.
Psalm 38:9–10 Is A Cry for Help in Times of Suffering
This is a picture in many ways that just sounds like depression, doesn’t it? “Oh, my longing is before you. My sighing is not hidden from you God, my heart throbs. My strength fails. The light of my eyes is gone from me.” I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced those kinds of emotions. I’m guessing some who are listening to this experience this a lot, maybe even live with a sometimes low level state of strength and feeling like the light of your eyes is not there, and life has left you sighing and longing.
It’s a low point. It’s one of the things I love about God’s word and specifically the Psalms, is how God’s word doesn’t hide or gloss over the hard realities of life in a fallen world, and how God’s word in places like this just gives us permission to come honestly before God and to express when we’re at low points, knowing that our God meets us where we are.
I think of first King’s 19 often when Elijah, the prophet Elijah would’ve at such a low point, he was ready to die. He was ready for his life to end. He didn’t want to go on, and God pursues him and meets him there and feeds him and nourishes him and gives him rest. God, we praise you for meeting us where we are, amidst whatever we’re walking through. And God, I pray specifically right now for people who are walking through hard times or low moments, with longing and sighing, where strength is failing and the light of their eyes seems gone from them.
Psalm 38:9–10 Portrays the Psalminst Trusting God in the Midst of Despair
God, I pray that you would meet them there, even right now, that you would remind them that you see them and you know them, and you hear their longings and their sighings, and you see their weakness, and you promise to be strength in our weakness, that you promise to be light in our darkness. God, we need your light. We need your strength. Lord, we need your hope. We need your joy.
We need you oh God. Lord, we praise you for your promise to meet us where we are, to be the lifter of our heads, to nourish us in the ways we need, just like you did Elijah. God, would you do that in a fresh way today for people who are listening right now and in need of strength, in need of joy, in need of light, in need of hope. God, we pray for people around the world who don’t know the hope that’s found in you, who don’t know the light that’s found in you.
Praying for the Lak People
Jesus, for the Lak people of Russia, 162,000 of them, hardly any of them followers of Jesus, most of them having no access to the gospel, God, we pray for the spread of your hope and your joy and your strength and your light in Jesus to the Lak people of Russia. God, please bless your church there. Call out your church from other places to go to the locked. People. We pray that they would find strength, joy, light, hope in you Jesus, as we do when we hit lows in our lives. We pray all of this according to your word in Psalm 38:9–10. In Jesus name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
